Beware of your filing cabinets. King County Sheriff gets dragged into City of Medina dispute with its fired police chief over public records copies in the Sheriff's hands. [Seattle Weekly]

Smaller and special purpose government boards like school districts and housing authorities still grapple with open public meeting compliance. Free tip for the day: If your entire board is sitting in the same room and discussing the district's work, it's probably a meeting. [Osage County Herald-Chronicle] [The Saratogian]

Now taking bets on the expected litigation bill for the City of Coos Bay fighting the Sierra Club over $16,700 in attorney fees the City tried to tack on for a public records request. [Eugene Register-Guard]

White House launches www.ethics.gov as one-stop shopping for open government information. [Wall Street Journal]

New York follows suit with Mayor Bloomberg signing a data transparency law that will allow the City to “continue leading the country in innovation and transparency…” with a unified open-data repository that opens for business in just six short years. [Information Week]

The Legislature giveth and the Legislature taketh: Florida legislature requires newly elected governors to preserve email and other records created before they are sworn in. Florida legislature also re-adopts measure providing a two-year disclosure exemption for tax-incentive deals. [Miami Herald] [Orlando Sentinel]

It doesn’t look good for the Washington Sunshine Committee to get a dawn surprise from the State Legislature as the session wraps up today. Maybe next year the light’s shinin’ through; they’ve been waiting so long. [Seattle Times]

An Australian government struggles to manage records and fulfill requests of adoptees and former orphans from nearly 50 miles worth of boxes. [Image and Data Manager]

Irony-challenged Georgia legislators ban recording of their meeting before approving new open government laws. Or rabble-rousing reporters conflate two quasi-related topics to make for fun headlines. There’s no winners here. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

US Department of Justice wins Rosemary Award for worst open government performance in 2011. Some journalists report Attorney General Eric Holder misunderstood the award and responded “you like me, you really like me” but that cannot be confirmed as 18 ½ minutes of the awards banquet video were erased. [National Security Archive – George Washington University]

The Open Government Singularity is nearly upon us, but California might be getting there just a bit quicker. One day, all government business and expenditures will relate to public records and open meetings; all public records requests will be about the expense of public records lawsuits. [The Sacramento Bee – Capitol Alert]

The high cost of reviewing public records about public records requests: Hawaii agency expects cost of producing a year’s worth of requests to run $123,000. [Honolulu Civil Beat]

Would you be reading this if it were printed in 8-point type next to the obituaries? Journalists are fighting to keep published public notice requirements in place. [Society of Professional Journalists]

British civil servants sound like American civil servants when it comes to public records requests, except for the accent. A survey by the UK Ministry of Justice finds their FOIA “has failed to increase understanding of government, may have reduced trust and has done little to improve decision-making in Westminster.” [The Guardian]

You’re not from around these parts – 4th Circuit upholds Virginia’s denial of non-residents’ public records requests. [Courthouse News Service]

CSPAN Nine in the making? Senate Judiciary Committee votes in favor of allowing television cameras into the U.S. Supreme Court; Scalia retorts that only town criers were contemplated by the Founders. [Citizen Media Law Project]

New Jersey municipalities attempt to limit videotaping of council meetings. What happens if Snooki and J-Woww show up unexpectedly? [The Record/NorthJersey.com]

New tools, new arguments. Cities struggle with tablet computing and text messages during meetings. At least the fights aren’t about Angry Birds and sexting in session. Yet. [Petaluma Press Democrat] [Voice of OC]

Washington cities are trying to balance blogs, tweets, pokes, and likes with laws written four years before Steve Jobs sold his first Apple. [Kitsap Sun]

For over a century, Foster Pepper PLLC has advised Washington local governments on the Federal and State constitutions and the laws affecting government organization and operation. Washington has a long tradition regarding open government. Washington is one of the first...More...

Northwest Open Government Lawyer & Attorney of Foster Pepper Law Firm, offering services related to public records, open meetings, campaign finance, public disclosure, the Public Records Act, the Open Public Meetings Act, the Public Disclosure Act, the Freedom of Information Act, public accountability and sunshine laws, serving Washington State, Seattle, Spokane and the Pacific Northwest.